Are You Writing a Memoir or Autobiography

It's one of the great conundrums of authors everywhere: am writing an autobiography or memoir? We are going to clear all of that up for you today so please stick around. My name is Kelly Notaras I'm the founder of KN Literary Arts. We are your one-stop shop getting you from wherever you are to having book in your hand so please visit us at KNliterary.com. also bring all of my 24-ish years of publishing experience here in the United States to this YouTube channel for free so please click the Subscribe button and hit that little bell icon so you never miss video. So one of the age-old questions that we hear all the time for people who really know that their story needs to get onto the page and into the world is "Well am writing an autobiography or am writing memoir and honestly what's the difference between the two?" want to clear that up for you. Now, want to say that if you go looking in Webster's Dictionary for the definitions of these two different types of books you're going to find something that's little different than what I'm going to say to you today. What I'm telling you today is how those terms are held in today's publishing industry here in the US and in other westernized countries, okay? So this may not be the, as say, dictionary definition but it is definitely the publishing-world definition and want you to sound like publishing Insider when you're going to talk to agents or publishers about getting your book in the world. So what's an autobiography? An autobiography is chronicle of every really important event in your life starting from childhood or even birth all the way through till today. So you can think of it again as chronicle of events. Now, who wants to read an autobiography? Generally speaking, we are interested in reading them if we feel like we really know the person whose story it is. So that might be celebrity like politician or sports hero or movie star or it might be somebody that we care lot about. Maybe your grandfather or your mother has written an autobiography and that is precious gift to your family. In fact, if that's what you're thinking about writing your book for, just want to say please, please do it. Boy do wish that my grandparents had written autobiographies. would have loved to know the details of their lives. Okay so, letting that go.That is an autobiography. Most average people out there in the marketplace are not necessarily going to read an autobiography from somebody that they've never met before because if the promise is "hey, I'm going to tell you about my life" might think well why do care, right? Why do care about the chronicle of your life? It doesn't necessarily resonate with me. might care if for example you were the founder of the town live in or you know somebody who's been figure in my family's life -- something like that but have to have connection to you already to be interested in reading your autobiography okay? And again autobiographies tend to be written by people later in life. They tend to be sort of legacy project like, hey lived pretty incredible life or even just really important average life and want the people who follow behind me to know about it. And that is just such valid reason to write one and if that's you please, please, please, keep going. But if you want your story to get out into the world to help other people as many of the clients we see at KN Literary do, and you want it to be read by people who don't know you, it needs to be framed as memoir instead of an autobiography. So memoir is an account of particular event or series of events or even theme in your life. So when you are talking about it in the world you're really talking about this one thing that happened or this one theme from your life. So for example if were writing my autobiography, wouldn't be necessarily talking -- wouldn't pitch it when I'm talking to people as "this story is going to help you see how to break into the publishing industry" right? Because that is big, you know, part of my life -- the publishing industry, it's my whole career right? So that's interesting, but if I'm writing my whole story chronologically we don't get to the publishing industry until like 23 years in, right? And so it's not necessarily going to encourage someone to read through all of that early childhood stuff just to get to the thing they're actually interested in which is the publishing business. Instead, if were going to write memoir about breaking into the publishing business, would tell you that's what it is and would really start maybe walking into my first interview in my like ill-fitting suit that had, you know, bought at Marshalls, and hoping that they thought was older than was -- all those different feelings had when was in New York getting my first job at major publisher. would start there and the book itself would be really bookended or framed around my time in the publishing business, okay? So do you see how that's different? can tell you hey I'm writing book about my time in the publishing business you're like that's actually really interesting I've been wanting to write book. And maybe there are lot of other people out there who've never heard of me before but they actually are interested in that publishing angle for some reason. They don't really mind that they don't know me. They may still pick up the book. So it makes makes it so that somebody else is going to be interested in reading it even if they don't know me and want that for you as well, okay? So for example we have lot of people at KN literary who want to write on the theme of overcoming illness for example. Maybe they made it through cancer with the help of natural remedies in addition to their Western medicine that they went through right. And they want to tell you about how they did that so that you yourself can either use that if you ever need it or help another friend who might be going through cancer. If you have friend going through cancer or you yourself are, you may want to really read someone else's story and get the insight that they gathered, right? But if they tell you this is my autobiography, you might not pick it up. If they say am writing book about how to overcome cancer with the use of natural remedies in addition to Western medicine, then we the book "knows its audience" -- that's publishing concept. You want the book to know its audience. It will know its audience if you get specific about the time frame or the event or the theme that you're going to be framing that memoir around. Does that make sense? So oftentimes talk about one of my absolute favorite memoirs as really good example of this. It's "Expecting Adam" by Martha Beck and what love about that book is that the entire book fits into the nine months that she was pregnant with her son Adam. But, we learn so much about what happened in her life before that through flashback. So she goes back and tells us about what happened in terms of what's relevant to the current story, which is being pregnant with Adam, Okay? another great example of this is "Redefining Realness" by Janet Mock and this is book where she is telling the story of telling her current boyfriend that she is trans. So we start off with the fact that she's met this amazing man and she's so excited about him and thinks he could be keeper. But she has to tell him that she started off her life in male body. And so she tells us at the time, she goes back in time and explains what it was like to grow up and to know that she was woman but she was trapped in this boy's body and all of those different pieces of her childhood fit into the book but the framework is -- she's telling this man that she is trans. And so it really takes place in very short period of time, the present-day action, but we get lot of flashback along with that, all right? So that those are just two examples of great memoirs that do this, but I'll say most memoirs do this. Another category killer everybody's heard of is "Eat. Pray. Love." right? So we learn lot about Elizabeth Gilbert's life. We learn little bit about her marriage and her divorce and her childhood and but we don't necessarily -- we're not walking through every single step of those processes chronologically. We're hearing them inside of this really cool "conceit" -- another word in the publishing business or like you could call you know the framework is the conceit of of the book -- of she spends three months eating in Italy. She spends three months praying in India and she spends three months in Bali falling in love, okay? So that is beautiful framework for her life story, which she's going to tell us lot about as it relates to that period of time, all right? So this is memoir and what's cool about memoir is that number one, it knows its audience. It finds its audience right? If I'm somebody who is interested in eating and prayer, which think lot of women are, and love obviously, I'm going to be drawn to that book. In fact, remember got galley of that book meaning an early edition of it before it ever hit the shelves and was reading it on the New York subway and I've never ever had so many people come up to me and "say what is that book?" They loved the cover and they loved the title. It's just something about it had that like energy that it wouldn't have been if it was "My Life" by Elizabeth Gilbert, if you know what mean. So we really want to see how we can choose that framework that's going to sizzle when people see it and it's going to make them want to pick up the book even if they don't know you. The other cool thing about writing memoir is that you don't write just one memoir. You could, but you don't have to. You can write many memoirs because each different event or different theme that you have worked in your life or experienced can be its own book and its own story and it will find its own audience. So with that wish you well. Please let us know down below: Are you more of an autobiography person or are you more of memoir person and which one feels like the right place for you to start? We would love to help you if there's any way -- we do coaching, we do editing, we do collaborative writing, self-publishing, you name it. Please don't hesitate to go to KNliterary.com and schedule free, no obligation call with one of our awesome Publishing Consultants. We'd love to talk to you, alright? With that leave you and say as always, happy writing!